Study reveals new antibiotic treatment for diabetic foot infections

A study by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has found that the antibiotic linezolid has tested effectively for treating diabetic foot infections.

Researchers said that linezolid, which was approved in 2000 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for other uses, was equally as effective or better than two previously approved therapies for treating diabetic foot infections. Linezolid is known commercially as Zyvox.

"The complication of diabetes that patients fear most is leg amputation, and infection is often the final pathway that leads to this tragic, if often preventable, outcome," said lead study author Benjamin A. Lipsky, director of the General Internal Medicine and Antibiotic Research clinics at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System.

The study involved 371 patients at 45 U.S. and European sites and is discussed in the publication Clinical Infectious Diseases.

About 60,000 elderly or disabled Medicaid recipients in Louisiana are being told they should expect to lose their benefits in July, and advocates say more than a quarter of them could be forced out of the long-term care facilities they call home.